Nutria are considered such a problem in Louisiana that the state offers a $6 bounty on each tail. Ray said the money is nice, but he calls that program it waste of good meat.

"I catch'em, kill'em and put them in the pot. They are darn good eating," Ray said.

Here's Ray:

Can we get a reality show where Ray barges into that NYC art show "Tomorrow We Will Feast Again on What We Catch" and takes over the cooking and serving? Let it be one of the competitive shows where we eliminate contestants one by one. Each week the least interesting human being goes home. We could have a Heidi Klum-like arbiter of interestingness who, along with 2 other judges, would assemble the 3 least interesting contestants each week, critique them, and ultimately select one to be told "I'm sorry — you bore me — goodbye."

But who could be the judges of interestingness? Who specializes in that? I mean other than bloggers....

However, I do understand the need to get rid of the pests. We have an are in our locality called "The Rat Farm". Back in the 50's or even earlier, the idea was to raise muskrats for fur. The critters escaped and are a constant and dangerous nuisance burrowing into river banks and levies. We have had devastating flooding caused by their burrows.

"Nutria" is something I haven't heard about since the early 60's: I remember some guy at church trying to convince my father to invest in raising them. I think we even ate a sample. Privately, my dad said he wasn't going to spend money on "glorified rats".

DBQ, A few of my friends would trap muskrats on the Pequabuck River in Ct. They had to check their traps every morning because those critters would knaw off their trapped leg if they didn't. They sold the pelts to a furrier from Hartford who would drive a circuit in central Ct. buying pelts, mostly from kids. I had a morning paper route but trapping wassn't my cup o' tea.

Shortly before the Patrician came to power there was a terrible plague of rats. The city council countered it by offering twenty pence for every rat tail. This did, for a week or two, reduce the number of rats—and then people were suddenly queueing up with tails, the city treasury was being drained, and no one seemed to be doing much work. And there still seemed to be a lot of rats around. Lord Vetinari had listened carefully while the problem was explained, and had solved the thing with one memorable phrase which said a lot about him, about the folly of bounty offers, and about the natural instinct of Ankh-Morporkians in any situation involving money: "Tax the rat farms."